The tech advocacy group surveyed the privacy policies then advocacy and transparency practices of 18 major tech companies. Sonic.net, an independent ISP in Santa Rosa, California, was the only company to get across-the-board four stars. The EFF's four categories are as follows: "tell users about data demands," "Be transparent about government requests," "Fight for user privacy in the courts," and "Fight for user privacy in Congress."

Other high-ranking companies included Dropbox, LinkedIn, Google, and Twitter. The online backup service SpiderOak, a newcomer in the EFF study, also fared well. Many of these companies are members of the Digital Due Process Coalition. It's a set of legal standards established less than a year ago that attempt to create some uniformity for privacy and law enforcement records access compliance.

"Online service providers are the guardians of some of your most intimate data–everything from your messages, to location information, to the identities of your family and friends," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Marcia Hofmann, in a statement.

"We wanted to acknowledge companies that are adopting best practices and taking exceptional steps to defend their users against government overreaches in the courts and in Congress."

The report also had plenty of poor performing companies, including Apple, AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and Amazon.

"Amazon is entrusted with huge quantities of information as part of its cloud computing services and retail operations, yet does not produce annual transparency reports, publish a law enforcement guide, or promise to inform users when their data is sought by the government," the EFF wrote.

I wish this type of rating, and the desire of companies to score well, would become as common public knowledge as stuff like energy star compliance or crash tests for automobiles. If Joe Public was more on board and interested in such factors, we might start seeing more change for the benefit of consumers (both in individual policy and in lobbying Congress).

I wish this type of rating, and the desire of companies to score well, would become as common public knowledge as stuff like energy star compliance or crash tests for automobiles. If Joe Public was more on board and interested in such factors, we might start seeing more change for the benefit of consumers (both in individual policy and in lobbying Congress).

Both of those things are operated and publicized by the federal government.

I wish this type of rating, and the desire of companies to score well, would become as common public knowledge as stuff like energy star compliance or crash tests for automobiles. If Joe Public was more on board and interested in such factors, we might start seeing more change for the benefit of consumers (both in individual policy and in lobbying Congress).

Me too. It can be hard to make privacy and control of one's own data a sexy issue, though...Wonder what would have to happen for a sea-change in public thought?

I wish this type of rating, and the desire of companies to score well, would become as common public knowledge as stuff like energy star compliance or crash tests for automobiles. If Joe Public was more on board and interested in such factors, we might start seeing more change for the benefit of consumers (both in individual policy and in lobbying Congress).

Both of those things are operated and publicized by the federal government.

The point is companies can't wait to talk about their 4 star crash ratings and fuel economy. The public also takes great interest in those things. We need to have a truly standardized rating for privacy, consumer protection and value that's a standardized rating companies will fight to achieve and display (it can be government run or independently operated such as Consumer Reports/JD Power etc...) . That would probably go a ways toward generating consumer interest and help foster Joe Public with more knowledge about where their provider stands, and what they need to be fighting for.

That is kinda funny because my parents live in Santa Rosa, Ca and they get their internet service from Sonic. Have for years. Good to hear they are such a good company, morally speaking. Their service rocks too. Very cool.

Well this was interesting, most of the companies in the bottom were not surprises, but to me Amazon was. I don't know why... but they seem cooler that that! Also, Apple is not a shock, but I'm hoping Tim Cook will take them out of that, since he seems to be pursuing better policies in that regard... or maybe he won't.

The problem is that most of the general public has no real concept of what's actually going on with their personal data, or how any of this stuff works. Education is a great thing, for people who want to be educated and aren't just tired from working all day and don't care about much other than cold beer and lolcats. That will have to change before enough outrage or demand will accrue to get things moving in a better direction.

I wish this type of rating, and the desire of companies to score well, would become as common public knowledge as stuff like energy star compliance or crash tests for automobiles. If Joe Public was more on board and interested in such factors, we might start seeing more change for the benefit of consumers (both in individual policy and in lobbying Congress).

Me too. It can be hard to make privacy and control of one's own data a sexy issue, though...Wonder what would have to happen for a sea-change in public thought?

Well - if a batch of national companies got caught dumping private data will nilly to 3rd parties or the governement without and legitiamte reason....Oh wait that was already done - AT&T / Verizon - 2007...

About every 2 months - Visa or Ebay or Comcast or <insert favorite company to hate here> or some other major company gets hacked and millions and billions of credit cards and credit information gets dumped into the hands of hackers. This stuff hits the national news across the board - but no that isn't doing it either.